Helium balloons blamed for power outage in Everett

Herald Staff

EVERETT -- Helium party balloons that became entangled in power lines likely are the source of a 45-minute power outage Saturday afternoon in downtown Everett.Snohomish County Public Utility District officials are unsure what caused another outage on Saturday morning that cut the power to people living in north Everett."We inspected all of the lines feeding the two substations in the area and found no definitive cause. There was no equipment malfunction," said PUD spokesman Neil Neroutsos. "This was a short-lived outage, about 30 minutes on Saturday morning. Sometimes a falling tree limb will trip an outage such as this. It is not unusual. More people noticed because it was during the weekend when they tend to be at home."The power outage in the afternoon shut down operations at The Herald for about an hour.

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